October typically brings Halloween ghost stories, pranks and trick or treating, but scary stories about cyberattacks and trickery around data breaches run rampant all year long. Aside from Halloween, October is also National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), bringing awareness to the latest cybersecurity headlines, security breaches and personal privacy concerns. During October, Homeland Security works to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity and provides resources to help us be safer and more secure online.

Own IT. Secure IT. Protect IT.

The NCSAM 2019 theme is Own IT. Secure IT. Protect IT. This theme emphasizes personal accountability and stresses the importance of taking proactive steps to enhance cybersecurity practices at home and in our businesses.

Own IT emphasizes that every person plays an important role in protecting our personal and work privacy information while traveling or online. Many times, we provide a lot of personal information on social media that could compromise our privacy.

Secure IT stresses the importance of securing our accounts, appliances and Wi-Fi with strong passwords and multifactor authentication and being diligent while working within email.

Protect IT helps us become aware of new cybersecurity trickery that can be used on social media and internet devices. We need to be aware IT users and take the necessary steps to protect our data.

NCSAM in Your Business

How can your company celebrate National Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Below are a few ideas:

Host a cybersecurity lunch and learn for your employees

Setup an awareness training program

Schedule a penetration test to help expose vulnerabilities to protect your data

Implement mobile device management or multifactor authentication

Increase your cloud security services

Whatever you choose, the cybersecurity advisors at Anders can help you implement the best cybersecurity practices to protect you and your business. Learn more about Anders Technology Services or contact an Anders advisor to see how we can help you mitigate security risk and defend against a costly cyberattack.